Byakugan Eyes
by Sky's Song
Summary: Neji takes notice of Hinata's new techniques and finally take interest in her as a person. Will Hinata and Neji be able to bond like the cousins they should be? A cute fic about the family relations between the two. Complete.


_Byakugan Eyes_

_  
By Sky's Song_

Hinata was happy for the first time in a long time, because her mission had just gone extremely well.

"Hinata," her father looked at her with those cold, distant eyes that seemed to be saved just for her. Inside, she sighed, knowing how much he detested her weakness. Little did he know she was slowly getting stronger.

"Father?" She asked, and turned around hesitant, for a moment her smile erased from her face.

"You succeeded with your mission?" His voice held no scorn; in fact, it held no emotion at all. The reminder of the mission had, however, brought the beaming smile back onto the shy girl's blushing face.

"No, it utterly and completely failed!" She laughed and turned back around running for the pure joy of exhilaration. Her father stood there slightly stunned at her reaction and words.

"Why in the world is she happy?" he muttered to himself and glanced at his prodigy nephew, Neji. He then was taken aback by the strange look on the young nin's face. His eyes were focused on the fading form of Hinata. "Neji?"

"Sir," Neji's eyes re-focused on the man in front of him. "Before you said it would be good training to watch Hinata."

"Nn," He agreed. But why would he bring it back up now? What about the hesitant, shy Hinata had caught his attention? As far as he knew, the girl was far beyond saving, she was so buried in her own self-doubt. It was her destiny to be weak, like it was Neji's destiny to be strong.

Neji started walking calmly toward the exit Hinata had taken. "Hm?"

Neji's shining eyes closed as he spoke. "I promised Lee that I would meet him and Tenten at the Ramen shop for dinner. May I be excused?"

Though phrased as one, it obviously wasn't a question; Neji walked out without an answer.

"What is going on these days?" he mumbled to himself, and proceeded to train, alone.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Hinata, having no company of which to help her train, ran strait for her favorite water spot. Unfortunately, Konoha retained no waterfalls which were perfect for her chakra training, but the shy ninja had become accustomed to her spot. Also, she noted with a shy smile on her face, it was in the middle of the forest where not many people ventured except for extreme training, so she was always on her own. Not even her teammates had known about this spot of hers.

She skidded to a halt in the small clearing around the stream, dirt kicking up behind her before hastily settling down. She sighed happily, once more thinking back on her failed mission. She, Kiba, Akamaru, Shino, and Naruto had failed in exposing that special insect to Sasuke's scent, therefore rendering the mission incomplete, but Hinata had gained one thing that she had never truly felt: acknowledgement of her power, her reliability. And, if she wanted to keep that, she had to continue to grow.

She picked off her pack for lunch and placed it on her designated "lunch rock," before un-strapping her sandals and pulling them off. She then took off her heavy jacket, and folded it. Hinata decided against taking off anything else, however, because of her last experience with Naruto. She blushed intently at the thought, and had to divert her thoughts to discourage her face from turning beat red. _Naruto-kun,_ she wondered idly, _what exactly did you see?_

The thoughts were shaken from her head, however, as she sensed a presence near her secret training area.

Her head snapped up in fear. Would they discover her? It was their right to be treading through the forest, Hinata knew, but a small part of her just wanted this spot to be completely hers. But… what if it was Naruto-kun? Hinata blushed deeply at the thought. For him to walk in on her training again would be… embarrassing, to say the least. Hinata brought her hands up to her face in an instinctive way, covering her mouth shyly.

It was most likely not Naruto-kun, she knew. The other possibilities were her two teammates, Shino and Kiba. But why were they looking for her? Hadn't Kiba declared today a "man's day" and forced the dark and secretive Shino to go off doing whatever guys do?

Maybe her sensei was looking for her, decided Hinata. Perhaps the woman wanted to spend some time with the friendless shy girl.

Unable to bear the mystery, Hinata lowered her hands and performed the appropriate seals. "Byakugan!"

Hinata's eyes widened and her eyes faded from the stiff, focused, and coldly powerful eyes back to the soft, shy light blue eyes that she normally bore. She had not expected _him_.

Neji leapt into the clearing.

"N-Neji-san…" She muttered quietly, her body seemed to close up with her mind as she hugged her self automatically for reassurance. Had he come to lecture her on her failed mission? To criticize her weakness? To insult her blood, claiming his better like he had the last time they had truly exchanged words?

"Hinata-sama." Neji stared at her ruthlessly. Hinata quickly looked away.

"Aa- What… ano… N-Neji-san… ano…" She couldn't seem to keep her tongue on one word.

Suddenly, however, his eyes, identical to hers, softened. "Hinata-sama, I am sorry to disturb you." He bowed his head apologetically.

Hinata's eyes flicked up to her cousin, the beloved of her family despite his branch-family linage. Sorry? _He's sorry? What happened to make him want to speak to me?To make him 'sorry?'_ She wanted to ask him, but all that came out were stutters. "Ano… ano…"

"Before, when you almost ran into me-"

_Oh!_ Hinata suddenly realized what he wanted. She bowed her head. "Ano… Neji-san, I'm sorry that I was so careless. I could have… ano… I could have hurt you, and I didn't bother to pause to apologize properly." Hinata bowed her head once more.

"No, Hinata, that's not what I meant. You should really let me finish." Neji-san seemed to be scolding her in… an almost brotherly way? Was that possible for the strong prodigy child who hated her?

"When you almost ran into me, I noticed that your footwork was unfamiliar to the Hyuuga family lines. I wanted to ask you where you learned it." Neji had a soft smile gracing his lips.

Hinata's eyes widened as she was brought back to the situation.

_She turned the corner quickly and almost ran smack dab into Neji. Out of pure instinct, her foot dodged out to the side, and she spun out of the way, before taking off again. "Sorry, Neji-san! I'm in a hurry!" she called out to him, the determination in her mind not in the least overcoming her voice. She still sounded weak, but it was part of her shy personality. She mentally shrugged it off, telling herself physical strength was more important._

_Neji stared after the shy girl, amazed, his eyes wide with shock._ Hinata-sama. What was the move?

"You… You wanted to…?" Hinata was confused, and her voice was soft and low. "Why? Don't you, ano, don't you hate me?" Hinata looked strait into Neji's eyes, milky blue meeting milky blue.

He smirked, but didn't answer. Hinata wondered if that meant no, but before she could question again, her cousin spoke up again.

"Shouldn't you be training?" Neji asked, settling down against the rock where her lunch lay. It seemed to Hinata that he had every intention of watching.

"N-Neji-san," Hinata said, surprised, but then she smiled in understanding. _Is this your way of making a truce, Neji-san? Do you really not hate me?_

"Nn!" She agreed, nodding her head. Quickly she ran out to the middle of the stream.

Neji watched her intently.

Hinata slapped her hands together in a seal and concentrated. For a second, Neji's staring gaze distracted her and made her nervous, but she frowned in resolve. _Concentrate, Hinata,_ she told herself. _Concentrate!_

"Byakugan!"

Veins spread from her eyes, and her gaze intensified. Hinata's body relaxed into a stiff fighting pose, and she thrust her hand out in front of her, gracefully, but strongly. The air waved around her hand from the pressure. Carefully, she switched the positions of her hands, bringing her left hand out to replace her right. She took a deliberate step forward and jabbed again with her left hand, then performed a spinning kick. In turns, she worked out each of her fighting blows, moving her feet back and forth. After five minutes of slow, intended strikes, Hinata increased in speed, slowly.

Neji watched thoughtfully, studying her technique. It was the traditional gentle-fist style, but he knew that was not the technique she had used to dodge him in the hallway a few days prior. He continued to watch, until Hinata had increased to a speed that his eyes tired of trying to keep up with. Only with Byakugan activated, he knew, could he follow such moves. But though Hinata seemed faster and stronger in this technique, he knew she had been concentrating on something else, too. This wasn't what he was looking for.

After an hour of this, Hinata allowed herself to slow down. Eventually she stopped completely and paused once more in the middle of the stream, panting ever so slightly. Without saying a word, Hinata walked over to Neji, blushing in embarrassment as she looked at him, Hinata reached into her pack and pulled out her lunch.

Hinata looked at her older cousin, who had watched her the entire time. _What are you thinking, Neji-san?_ Hinata wondered shyly. She didn't ask, however, and instead sat down next to him and took a bite out of her rice ball. After swallowing, she looked up at the clear blue sky, and attempted to make conversation.

"Ano, Neji-san, isn't it a nice day out?" She tried to sound encouraging and confident.

"Nn," Neji smiled at his shy cousin. He was not interested in the weather much, but in Hinata herself, who he had diligently ignored before. Neji promptly changed the subject. "When did you find this place?"

Hinata blushed at the direct question and Neji wondered how she could become a ninja if she blushed at everything everyone said.

"Neji-san… Ano, Neji-san, is there a special place where you train?" Hinata daringly turned the question back at him, and looked him strait in the eye, startling him. Hinata smiled, knowing that he hadn't expected shy little Hinata to be daring.

"Yes," Neji replied, quickly recovering. "It is also deep in the forest, though I am usually training with Lee and Tenten." He stared at her pointedly, waiting for her to speak once again.

She smiled, and even laughed a little. "It must be nice." _It must be nice to have friends who are close to you. _Hinata adjusted her body so that her feet entered the cool water. Hinata sighed deeply in pleasure, and then offered Neji one of her rice rolls, noting that he hadn't brought anything to eat.

Neji took it without a word. Somehow, he sense that Hinata was mulling over the thoughts in her head, and that she would speak up again after she decided what to say.

Indeed, Hinata was having trouble of thinking how to put her thoughts into words. She could remember clearly the day she had stumbled onto this patch of training ground, offered up to her as a sanctuary at the time after being ruthlessly teased by some of the girls in her class.

Finally, her thoughts organized, Hinata looked up at the sky again. _The sun is at it's zenith,_ she noticed before opening her mouth.

"I was lost." At hearing Hinata speak after such a long interlude, Neji's head snapped back to her face. In the silence of the clearing, she sounded much louder, and much more confident. He was slightly surprised, but was also getting used to such surprises. Perhaps she really was strong, deep down.

"I was lost," she repeated. "I had run into the forest because the other girls had been… teasing me. They called me weird and, ano… I was crying. When I found this place, night had already fallen, and I didn't know how to get back. I had no tent, and no food, so I improvised." To emphasize what had happened, Hinata got up and walked to the edge of the clearing and pushed back some branches, revealing an orange tree. She picked two and walked back to Neji, renewing her position and handing her cousin the second orange, while beginning to peal her own.

"The next day, I managed to find my way back. Father was very angry." Hinata smiled at that. Her father didn't really care that much about her now to summon anger against her. "I was eight at the time." She didn't tell him that it had taken her an entire year to work up the courage to re-enter the forest, or how she had sought out this place half a year before she graduated. And she didn't tell him why she had started to train here. She knew that all these things would embarrass her beyond words.

Neji looked at the shy girl. "You had already been able to summon Byakugan, hadn't you?" he guessed. How else could she have found her way out of the forest without the help of her eyes to tell her where all the people were?

"Yes, Neji-san," Hinata looked down at her lap. "Father didn't know."

Neji was shocked. This weak girl had been able to use the Byakugan at age eight? If that was so, _Hinata, _thought Neji, _you really are strong. Why do you hold back?_

"Hinata, did you finish your training?" Neji asked her.

Hinata shook her head and stood up, doing her best to ignore his eyes on her. She had never spent so much time with her cousin in the past, and she couldn't help wonder if he was truly interested in her at last, or if he just wanted to amuse himself by watching the girl.

"Show me your new techniques." Neji called out to her in request. Hinata looked at him questioningly.

"Neji-san?"

"I am interested in them." Neji said in an offhand way, but Hinata's eyes lit up with the compliment.

_Is Neji-san acknowledging me?_

"Hai!" Hinata yelled. (This time, Neji didn't even bother being shocked by how loud she was. He was getting used to Hinata doing things that surprised him.)

Once again, Hinata's hands slapped together. "Byakugan!"

This time was different from the last session, however, for instead of falling into the traditional stance, Hinata gracefully fell into an unfamiliar movement. Her arms swung around her head, slowly with her feet strait under her, and suddenly bullets of water shot into the air and stopped just as quickly inches from her hands. Pulling her right hand strait out in front of her, the swirling ball of water made an arc in the air as it followed. Then Hinata pulled her foot to her knee, and like a ballerina, raised herself to the ball of her left foot, and then to her toes. For what seemed like hours, but were in fact mere minutes, she stayed like that, balancing on the water. Neji was confused. Was this her actual training?

But then she started moving again, gracefully and in a sort of seductive way. _It's a good thing she's my cousin._ Neji thought in amusement. Water shot into the air and started spinning around her, creating designs and complicated patterns. And then, she actually start to reform her punches and kicks, completely different from the traditional gentle-fist that Neji had concentrated on.

Neji's eyes widened at her talent as she gracefully flew through all the fighting moves as if they were nothing.

And then suddenly, Hinata stopped; the water floated back down to its origin, and Hinata looked over at her cousin shyly, waiting for him to critique her.

Neji didn't know what to make of her new moves. They were amazing, and it was obvious that she had been working hard on perfecting them. But why didn't she show herself to the world? To her father? She was improving at a faster speed than he was, and he had no doubt that she would surpass him with these new moves she seemed to be constantly developing.

"Neji-san?" Hinata's voice was hesitant, and almost sad. Quite different than she had been while training. _Are you afraid of my critique, Hinata?_ Neji asked her silently.

"Hinata," he deliberately dropped the formal "-sama" in an attempt to show her that she was his friend, and not just a cousin. He smiled in encouragement. "You don't show yourself enough to the world. You need to be confident in yourself."

Hinata looked down, thinking that this was criticism. He hadn't said anything about her jitsu, so Hinata automatically assumed it was bad.

"It's more efficient than the traditional gentle-fist." Neji said softly as he looked up to the sky. "And I don't hate you."

Hinata's eyes brightened and a small blush from the compliment formed on her cheeks as she too looked at the sky. She was surprised to see that it was darkening. "Neji-san…" Hinata started soft. "Arigato." For the first time, her voice seemed truly confident.

They started walking together as a unit, becoming what they should have been from the beginning: friends, cousin and cousin walking side by side.

"Would you like some dinner Hinata?" Neji asked her pleasantly.

"Hai, Neji…-niisan," Hinata smiled at him and giggled. Neji smiled in return, recognizing the "brother" suffix.

"Ramen, Hinata-chan?"

"Hai, Neji-niisan!"

Then they picked up their pace and ran all the way, laughing in good humor.

_End_


End file.
